


Exercise in Futility

by lost_spook



Category: Level 7 (TV)
Genre: Cold War Fables, Community: hc_bingo, Dystopia, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Obscure 1960s TV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 23:04:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you just can’t make things better, even when you try…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exercise in Futility

**Author's Note:**

> Fanfic for Level 7, a 1966 episode of the BBC's SF anthology series _Out of the Unknown_.
> 
> Written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo - wildcard square. ("Dystopia")

X127 opens his eyes, suddenly jolted out of his dream. He turns over in irritation and then stifles a yell at finding a hand on his arm and a presence beside his bunk where nothing should be.

“It’s only me,” says X117. His room-mate’s standing there in his utilitarian white night clothes, looking anxious, though not much more so than usual. “You started talking in your sleep – you set that thing off.” He nods to the speaker on the wall with a jerk of his head.

X127 gives a rueful smile at that, and watches X117 as he climbs back into the bunk beneath. He was dreaming, he can remember that. He was dreaming he was trapped somewhere, that he wanted _her_ , and that X117 was going on and on about the wretched tape again. And here he is, awake and in a glorified underground concrete box, wanting her, and instead watching X117 worry about the damned tape recordings.

He doesn’t agree with X117 about Level 7, or that there’s no point to marriage here, all the rest of that – that’s just cutting your nose off to spite your face. But X117 might be right about some things. It’s not enough, seeing your wife once a week by appointment. R747 is the one he wants to be with, but here he is, always stuck with X117. He likes his room mate well enough but he’d rather be away from him if he could – just so that he wouldn’t have to keep on worrying about him. When they got here, X117 was asking all the wrong questions and working out the system in ways X127 would rather not have been troubled with, but ever since he’s been gradually retreating into himself. It turns out that’s even worse. 

It’s what they do that troubles him, X127 knows that, but it’s simple to him. He doesn’t bother about it and he wishes X117 wouldn’t either. The thing is, Level 7’s a deterrent, that’s the point. It’s never going to happen, setting off the rockets for real, because the other side know they’ve got a Level 7, and so they wouldn’t dare. In the meantime, they’re all right down here. It might be more regimented than he’d like, but they’re safe, they’ve got food, water, clean air. What more do you need?

If the powers that be want him to play at pressing some buttons in return, that’s fine by him. Maybe he’s only a number here, but then it’s been last names or numbers for some time now. He’s used to that; they all are. And if they play taped lectures at him if he says the wrong words, it’s no skin off his nose, and neither is the fact that the choice of music is limited. It repeats every twelve days, he thinks. God, he thinks again, how much time did X117 spend shut in here finding _that_ out?

That’s not how his room-mate sees it, though. When X127 starts trying to tell him he shouldn’t worry about any of it, or that he should just get on and find a wife for himself, X117 gives him that look, as if he’s wondering how to translate between their two alien languages.

X127 will admit – if maybe not aloud, because, after all the tape _is_ a pain in the neck – that he misses outdoors, that he’d rather be with R747 as much as possible and not only in snatched appointments when there’s a room free. The work isn’t as demanding as they make out, not once you get used to it. 

Still, he thinks, turning over to try and peer at the bunk below, and only partially succeeding, another thing is – he’d like to cheer X117 up, _make_ him be happy again, at least for a moment. 

Then he sighs, because now he’s inconveniently wide awake. He slides out of the bunk and fetches himself some water. He looks back over at X117. He’s got his back to him now, but he’s still too tense, visible as a white shape in the gloom, thin, stiff shoulders poking out from under the military blanket.

“Look,” X127 says, putting the glass down and walking back over, “whatever it is, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

X117 turns round. “No, I suppose _you_ wouldn’t.” Then he sits up, and X127 sets himself down next to him for a while, in silence. It makes the lack of sleep better for being shared, at least for now, and there’s an irrational comfort in the warmth of another human being beside him.

They are trapped here, it’s true, even X127 feels that. There is the risk of going stir crazy. He’s easily pleased, or so X117 would tell him, but even he’s frustrated tonight. He blames the dream and being awake at some unholy hour of the night. He snaps, because of it: “Look, we _are_ here, though, so you have to make the best of it. We’re here on Level –”

X117 gives him a reproachful look, but it’s already too late, the “seven” is out of his mouth and the mind-achingly familiar click and recorded speech plays out, louder than ever in the darkness. It’s a new way of life, free from insecurity, from anxiety… except if you’re his bunk-mate.

“Sorry,” says X127. He leans his head back against the wall behind them. “Of course, I’d want to be outside, if I could,” he says, voicing the irritation that’s building inside him. “All of us would. But look at how things are, why we’re here – we can’t complain.”

“Well, no. That tape would soon correct us if we did.”

It is sometimes all so very clinical and military, and none of them exactly signed on for this. His odd hours with R747 are a relief, but they are only odd hours; it’s X117 he winds up with the rest of the time and right now he’s got to the point where he wants to shake him out of his gradually increasing misery. “Forget the damned tape, can’t you?”

“I would, if it’d _let_ me,” says X117 and then he shifts his position on the bunk. “I’m sorry, 127. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” X127 returns. “What about you? Bad dreams, too, was it?”

X117 looks ahead and gives a soft laugh. “No, not really. I think I was dreaming I wasn’t even here – not real at all, just sort of drifting. It was quite nice, really – and then I woke up here.”

“Not real?” says X127, and he turns his head towards X117. He reaches out and grips the other’s wrist. X117 feels colder than he should. “Yes, you are.”

X117 says nothing, but his face quivers briefly and then he is very still, waiting.

It was like this, back on the surface sometimes – so many air raids and drills, and waiting – being afraid, and mostly nothing happening, just that mixture of tedium and fear, unsure whether it would be worse for something to happen or not to happen. He’s out of that, here, but it seems there’s always war and fear in the background and he thinks that some nights you need to hold onto whoever’s nearest. Maybe X117 wouldn’t; he’s always got awkward principles about everything, hasn’t he? It’s no wonder he finds things so difficult.

“127 –” says X117 uncertainly, though he hasn’t moved away, and it’s not an objection, not yet. 

“It’s not that bad, you know,” says X127, cheerfully and firmly as he leans in nearer. “Being real, I mean.” He doesn’t give X117 any more time to talk or to worry. He does too much of both as it is. He kisses him.

X117 looks back at him, though he hasn’t pulled away. He only says, under his breath, “I thought you were supposed to be married.”

“And I thought _you_ said that didn’t count,” X127 returns, with a sudden grin. 

X117 gives a muted sigh. “It isn’t enough, then?” He doesn’t take any triumph in being right, X127 will allow him that. He sounds slightly sad, if anything.

“That isn’t the point,” says X127. They’re two different things, and it doesn’t matter, but he probably can’t explain that to X117, or not in words and he’s had enough of words, theirs and those on the endless recordings. He’s never been very interested in words. He kisses X117 again, with force behind the action this time and feels the resistance go out of him. X117 reaches out for him, though he’s awkward, nervous – much as X127 would have predicted, if he’d given it much thought. He just shakes his head in the gloom, and gently pushes X117 down on the bunk to save him any more trouble.

X117 laughs, suddenly, though still under his breath. “I hope you’re careful,” he says.

“What -?” X127 doesn’t understand.

X117 nods towards the speaker again. “Quiet, I mean. I don’t know what it’d make of –”

“Oh, _God_ ,” says X127, and then he’s laughing, too. Probably slight hysteria, the lack of sleep, the situation, and then neither of them can stop, or dare laugh too loudly. His brief words are enough to set it off anyway – there’s a click and then it tells them solemnly that God is an outmoded and superstitious concept that has no place on Level 7. Level 7 is free from such negative ideas.

X117 raises his eyebrows. “Well, that’s honest. I hadn’t thought they’d admit it’s a god-forsaken –”

“Oh, be quiet,” says X127, though he’s amused. He says in his friend’s ear: “The point is, 117, we forget we’re on –” he remembers the machine this time “– where we are. That all right with you?”

He takes X117’s failure to answer in words as a yes. 

*

And, afterwards, when they’re done, and he’s leaving X117 to return to his own bunk, the other says drowsily, “They didn’t even think of this, did they?”

And they didn’t, it’s true. It wasn’t even mentioned. They made strictly regimented rules about marriage and relationships to the opposite sex and then locked everyone in their rooms in pairs. X127 shakes his head. But that’s the military, and the government types for you. He doesn’t worry about it. “No,” he says, trying not to laugh again, but this time there’s no reply, and when he pauses to look back again, X117 isn’t awake any more – he’s asleep at last, looking absurdly young.

He thinks it’s helped, a little, maybe. And then he doesn’t have to think that he meant to do this all along, for reasons of his own.

*

In the morning, though, it’s back to the usual regimented routine. All it takes is one more shift for X117 to start retreating again. On the surface, he’s all right, but underneath his casual conversation, the misery is returning. It never really went away.

X127 wonders whether or not they’d try that again, if either of them would want to. Maybe that should be once a week by appointment as well. Or maybe they pretend it didn’t happen. It doesn’t really matter, does it? 

They’re here on Level 7, and on Level 7, love is only another bad word.


End file.
